Oxpeckers at Satara
Oxpeckers on a weekend at Satara, Kruger National Park On Saturday morning (Dec 4), I crawled out of bed at 3:30 to be early to Orpen Gate into the Kruger National Park to spend the night at Satara Camp. One of my goals was to get photos of birds that nest in tree cavities (hole […]
Out of the blocks with a bang…
We’re now 2 months into the year, with a pretty explosive start to the rarities scene. On Birding Big Day on 28 November last year, a team in KZN picked up a gull at St Lucia estuary, only reported 5 days later to the disappointment of local birders, who were unable to locate it again. […]
The Rules of Twitching!
Here in Southern Africa, the start of 2021 has been a special twitching season. Over this period a host of good rarities have showed up in many parts of the country, most notably the Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu- Natal. This was the case even before the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Elouise – which added […]
The ruff – our non-binary migrant
I love ruffs. Part of the reason for this is that they arrive in Gauteng, South Africa from the northern hemisphere during the chill, dusty winds of August and provide the first sign that our winter is almost over. It is especially nice to see them soon after arrival, when some of the few males […]
Basic evolutionary biology for birders
The video contained in this page was a webinar on Learn-the-Birds in October, 2020. Birds have played a critically important role in the origin of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and continue to play a significant role in both our understanding of evolutionary biology and some of its core controversies that continue to […]
Webinar recording – Buy equipment not software: quality open source (free) software for bird photographers
When you get into bird photography, you soon realise that you need to process your photos, and having just spent a small fortune on camera equipment, the last thing you need is to spend another small fortune on software just to make your photos usable. You need software for the following purposes: Download photos from […]
Wader conservation world watch 7 for 2020
A world-wide count of Waders / Shorebirds is happening Saturday 31st October 00h00(SAT) to Sunday 1st November 23h59 (SAT) 2020
Diederik cuckoo – observations and photos of mating rituals and nest intrusions
The unmistakeable, loud deed-deed-deed-deed-er-ick call of the diederik cuckoo, Chrysococcyx caprius, is a characteristic of the spring and summer landscape of southern Africa. The species is an intra-African migrant, tending to follow the rains, returning to southern Africa in September-October (mainly October, thought to be timed for the breeding season of its Ploceidae hosts). It […]
Lucky weekend with Long-billed pipits in Marakele National Park
On the weekend of Aug 22, 2020, when we were finally allowed to travel between provinces, I was lucky enough to spend two mornings observing Long-billed Pipits at Marakele National Park.
Learning about speciation from White-eyes
When I first saw the Orange River White-eye a couple of months ago, it got me thinking about the group, and having seen white-eyes in different parts of the world, I wondered about their evolution. There is something weird about a group with so many different but similar species, and within which strangely different looking […]